Speed, functionality, and control represent the characteristics that Mozilla most wants to define Firefox 4, the next major version of the organization's open-source browser.

In a Webcast conducted on Monday, Mozilla's director of Firefox, Mike Beltzner discussed the development roadmap for Firefox 4. He stressed that speed would be a top priority. Speed is also a priority for all the other browser vendors, particularly Google.

Beltzner conceded that Mozilla's focus on specific performance metrics like scroll speed overlooks how users actually perceive speed.

"Fast is a really interesting concept," he said. "We think of fast at Mozilla in terms of the benchmarks that we have. And it turns out that is one way to measure performance but it's not necessarily the way our users experience performance."

Full story: InformationWeek